Today you see some of the best and most profitable companies in the world trying to find ways to reduce their carbon footprint.

The recent article about the Riverside neighborhood trying to stay off the Superfund list hearkens back to days prior to the EPA when there were few regulations related to the use and disposal of toxins. It was because of concerns for the environment that congress passed and President Richard Nixon signed the legislation establishing the EPA which proceeded to clean up toxic disposal sites like Love Canal, which was one of the 93 Superfunds sites in New York alone. I am amazed by the rush to undo the EPA a regulations when we are still cleaning up the old messes.

I am very much pro-business and have sat on over 15 corporate boards over the years. Those boards have taught me that great companies will act responsibly regardless. Today you see some of the best and most profitable companies in the world trying to find ways to reduce their carbon footprint because they have foresight and know it is the right thing to do. However, we definitely need the regulations for the bad actors who care nothing for our children's health and will be long gone when it is time to clean up their messes.

Matthew Hook

Carmel

Dreamers potential only now starting to be realized

Some 9,800 young Hoosiers will descend into a legal black hole in six months time if Congress does not act. They will be forced to quit school, lose their jobs and cease paying taxes. I say “young Hoosiers” very purposefully. These young people were brought here as children by parents who do not have legal permission to be present in the United States. They have grown up in Indiana, gone to school here, followed the rules, and stayed out of trouble. This is the only country they have known. They would be strangers in the lands of their births.

Under the DACA program, these young adults, often referred to as "dreamers,” are now pursuing college degrees or working legally, supporting families, paying taxes and engaging in the civic lives of their respective communities. They are not permanently protected. They are ineligible for federal benefits. They have no prospects for gaining legal citizenship in a nation where they are otherwise model citizens. There are essentially no criminals among this group. They were thoroughly vetted and fingerprinted by the Department of Homeland Security prior to being granted DACA protections.

To most Hoosiers, DACA is an abstraction — a government program some may have heard about in news reports. But the President’s decision to end the DACA program affects the lives of real people.

A persuasive case can be made that justice would be best served by granting these individuals some form of permanent legal status. Yes, their parents may have committed a civil (not criminal) violation of law by remaining in the country without authorization. But in no other instance does America punish the children of lawbreakers.

There is an economic and societal argument that is just as valid. We taxpayers have invested in these young people. We have educated them in our public schools and in our universities. We have provided them with skills and opportunities that they are now using to pay back that investment. They are applying those skills in the workplace, buying goods and services, paying taxes and thereby adding value to the American economy.

The potential of these dreamers is only just now beginning to be realized, but if Indiana’s Congressional delegation does not act now to help give these young people a reason to continue dreaming and hoping, America and Indiana will be much poorer, economically and morally.